Snapshots Announcements Spotlight UTSA Athletics

September 2011, Issue 18



True Colors

True Colors logo

True Colors Training--Staff




Incorporating “True Colors” into the Curriculum:
Personality Typing in the Classroom
- Michelle Montanio - Assistant Direct, Student Activities

Curriculum is the entirety of experiences a student encounters within an educational setting and instruction is the actual teaching or sharing of information. Curriculum can consist of experiences that are intentional and deliberate, as well as, experiences that are unintentional and spontaneous. As a data collection instrument, each student has a unique view of curriculum and instruction because each of us operates within in our own paradigm or mindset based on previous experiences. Therefore, the end product of curriculum and instruction depends greatly upon the student’s unique intake, processing, and analysis of those experiences. Educators who use this as a starting point can then ask, “How can I engage all students when planning classroom curriculum and instruction?”

One approach would be to first acknowledge our own personality type and how that differs from others. Self-efficacy, “knowledge about yourself, specifically about your skills and abilities, including knowing your strengths, but also a realistic understanding of your weaknesses,” should be an on-going process for all educators (Adams, 1996, p. 4). Our personality type determines how we communicate and react to others in any given situation. This differs from learning styles, which “are those beliefs, preferences, and behaviors of learners that affect learning in a given situation” (Adams, 1998, p. 1). As educators, it is critical for us to be able to first effectively communicate with our students before attempting to “teach” them. It is through effective communication that we are able to engage students in the learning process. By first understanding our own personality type, we can then understand how to effectively communicate with and appreciate those personality types that differ from our own.

The True Colors metaphor, developed by Don Lowry, is a tool that can be utilized by educators to: “promote positive messages about each individual’s differences, provide a simple language for talking about individual’s unique characteristics through the use of color, stimulate learning by actively participating in the sorting activity, and invoke high retention of each person’s unique set of needs and values” (Lowry, 1999, p. 1).

The True Colors program may sound too good to be true. Now that we have explored the history of personality typing and traced the philosophical foundations as it relates to curriculum, let us turn our attention to the overall usefulness of the program in the classroom. How does it fare when scrutinized by those concerned with age, culture and gender issues? According to Lowry (1999):

This system has been used with children from first grade up in the public schools. It has been used by all ethnic groups (translated into Spanish, French and Russian) and is not gender specific. It is applied annually by close to 500,000 people and has been used by several million people in the contexts of business, education, health care, criminal justice, mental health, personal and career counseling, communities and others. (p. 1)


True Colors is an application of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter that utilizes color to represent personality preferences. It is founded on extensive research that has been conducted on both personality typing and the psychological effects of certain colors.

Having been certified in the facilitation of True Colors for the past twelve years, I believe it is important to understand that an individual’s personality is made up of all four colors. Just as a rainbow would be incomplete without one of its colors, so too would we be incomplete. It is the degree to which we choose to operate within the colors that determines our personality preference or Primary Color. It is also critical to understand that just as with curriculum, context plays a major role. Each of us has a preferred way of behaving but given a particular situation we may repress our true selves. Therefore, True Colors is not a tell all, know all program. Its value lies in the “Ah-ha” experience that each participant is able to immediately identify with and then build on. The personal knowledge gained becomes an invaluable tool when dealing with other people.


Please take a few minutes to participate in our True Colors survey. We would like to know what you think. This will help us plan for future curriculum and allow us to tailor our sessions to your departmental needs.

http://studentvoice.com/utsa/truecolors

Thank you,
Your True Colors Team


True Colors Training --
· Sept. 20, 2011 @ 8:30 – 12:00 noon @ UC Bexar Room
· Sept. 28, 2011 @ 1:30 – 5:00 @ UC Bexar Room

True Colors Training Schedule for staff (SD 410) ---- Fall 2011

True Colors Training Schedule for Student Affairs student employees (SD 417) -- Fall 2011

Any comments? Please send to VPSA@utsa.edu



Four C's

Four Cs logo

Four C’s Training Schedule for staff (SD 415) – Fall 2011

Four C’s Training ---
· Oct. 18, 2011 @ 1:30 – 5:00 @ UC Harris Room
· Oct. 26, 2011 @ 8:30 – 12:00 noon @ UC Harris Room

VPSA@utsa.edu